Hong Wang - Böcker

Many countries that subscribe to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have committed to ensuring access to basic health services for their citizens. Health insurance has been considered and promoted as the major financing mechanism to improve access to health services, as well to provide financial risk protection. In Africa, several countries have already spent scarce time, money, and effort on health insurance initiatives. Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Tanzania are just a few of them. However, many of these schemes, both public and private, cover only a small proportion of the population, with the poor less likely to be covered. In fact, unless carefully designed to be pro-poor, health insurance can widen inequity as higher income groups are more likely to be insured and use health care services, taking advantage of their insurance coverage. Despite the many benefits that health insurance may offer, table 1.1 shows that the journey to implement insurance and achieve the benefits is challenging, long, and risky. Policy makers and technicians that support development and scale-up of health insurance must figure out how to increase their country’’s financing capacity, extend health insurance coverage to the hard-to-reach populations, expand benefits packages, and improve the performance of existing schemes.

Comprehensive and in-depth in its coverage, Atherosclerosis: Cellular, Molecular & Biochemical Mechanism and Novel Therapy reviews the recent progress in atherosclerosis research and offers cutting edge perspectives from experts in the field. Written by an international team of authors including leading physician-scientists, research experts and physicians, chapters are divided into four major sections, covering risk factors, cellular and molecular mechanisms, biochemical mechanisms and novel and future therapeutics.Atherosclerosis: Cellular, Molecular & Biochemical Mechanism and Novel Therapy analyses recent progress from both conceptual and technological perspectives, suggesting new directions for atherosclerosis research and treatment for a growing population of researchers and clinicians in cardiovascular and related fields.

Over the past decades, although stochastic system control has been studied intensively within the field of control engineering, all the modelling and control strategies developed so far have concentrated on the performance of one or two output properties of the system. such as minimum variance control and mean value control. The general assumption used in the formulation of modelling and control strategies is that the distribution of the random signals involved is Gaussian. In this book, a set of new approaches for the control of the output probability density function of stochastic dynamic systems (those subjected to any bounded random inputs), has been developed. In this context, the purpose of control system design becomes the selection of a control signal that makes the shape of the system outputs p.d.f. as close as possible to a given distribution. The book contains material on the subjects of: - Control of single-input single-output and multiple-input multiple-output stochastic systems; - Stable adaptive control of stochastic distributions; - Model reference adaptive control; - Control of nonlinear dynamic stochastic systems; - Condition monitoring of bounded stochastic distributions; - Control algorithm design; - Singular stochastic systems.A new representation of dynamic stochastic systems is produced by using B-spline functions to descripe the output p.d.f. Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

A recent development in SDC-related problems is the establishment of intelligent SDC models and the intensive use of LMI-based convex optimization methods. Within this theoretical framework, control parameter determination can be designed and stability and robustness of closed-loop systems can be analyzed. This book describes the new framework of SDC system design and provides a comprehensive description of the modelling of controller design tools and their real-time implementation. It starts with a review of current research on SDC and moves on to some basic techniques for modelling and controller design of SDC systems. This is followed by a description of controller design for fixed-control-structure SDC systems, PDF control for general input- and output-represented systems, filtering designs, and fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) for SDC systems. Many new LMI techniques being developed for SDC systems are shown to have independent theoretical significance for robust control andFDD problems.

A recent development in SDC-related problems is the establishment of intelligent SDC models and the intensive use of LMI-based convex optimization methods. Within this theoretical framework, control parameter determination can be designed and stability and robustness of closed-loop systems can be analyzed. This book describes the new framework of SDC system design and provides a comprehensive description of the modelling of controller design tools and their real-time implementation. It starts with a review of current research on SDC and moves on to some basic techniques for modelling and controller design of SDC systems. This is followed by a description of controller design for fixed-control-structure SDC systems, PDF control for general input- and output-represented systems, filtering designs, and fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) for SDC systems. Many new LMI techniques being developed for SDC systems are shown to have independent theoretical significance for robust control andFDD problems.

Over the past decades, although stochastic system control has been studied intensively within the field of control engineering, all the modelling and control strategies developed so far have concentrated on the performance of one or two output properties of the system. such as minimum variance control and mean value control. The general assumption used in the formulation of modelling and control strategies is that the distribution of the random signals involved is Gaussian. In this book, a set of new approaches for the control of the output probability density function of stochastic dynamic systems (those subjected to any bounded random inputs), has been developed. In this context, the purpose of control system design becomes the selection of a control signal that makes the shape of the system outputs p.d.f. as close as possible to a given distribution.The book contains material on the subjects of: - Control of single-input single-output and multiple-input multiple-output stochastic systems; - Stable adaptive control of stochastic distributions; - Model reference adaptive control; - Control of nonlinear dynamic stochastic systems; - Condition monitoring of bounded stochastic distributions; - Control algorithm design; - Singular stochastic systems.A new representation of dynamic stochastic systems is produced by using B-spline functions to descripe the output p.d.f. Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

The number of heavy-duty construction vehicles is increasing significantly with growing urban development causing poor air quality and higher emissions.

There is still much room to improve existing anti-idling technologies and products.In this book, we took a service vehicle, refrigerator truck, as an example to demonstrate the whole process of designing, optimizing, controlling, and developing a smart charging system for the anti-idling purpose.

Thanks to the potential of reducing fuel consumption and emissions, hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have been attracting more and more attention from car manufacturers and researchers.

Ever stringent vehicle safety legislation and consumer expectations inspire the improvement of vehicle dynamic performance, which result in a rising number of control strategies for vehicle dynamics that rely on driving conditions.

In recent years, the control of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) has attracted strong attention for various automotive applications. One of the important features demanded of CAVs is collision avoidance, whether it is a stationary or a moving obstacle. Due to complex traffic conditions and various vehicle dynamics, the collision avoidance system should ensure that the vehicle can avoid collision with other vehicles or obstacles in longitudinal and lateral directions simultaneously. The longitudinal collision avoidance controller can avoid or mitigate vehicle collision accidents effectively via Forward Collision Warning (FCW), Brake Assist System (BAS), and Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), which has been commercially applied in many new vehicles launched by automobile enterprises. But in lateral motion direction, it is necessary to determine a flexible collision avoidance path in real time in case of detecting any obstacle. Then, a path-tracking algorithm is designedto assure that the vehicle will follow the predetermined path precisely, while guaranteeing certain comfort and vehicle stability over a wide range of velocities. In recent years, the rapid development of sensor, control, and communication technology has brought both possibilities and challenges to the improvement of vehicle collision avoidance capability, so collision avoidance system still needs to be further studied based on the emerging technologies.In this book, we provide a comprehensive overview of the current collision avoidance strategies for traditional vehicles and CAVs. First, the book introduces some emergency path planning methods that can be applied in global route design and local path generation situations which are the most common scenarios in driving. A comparison is made in the path-planning problem in both timing and performance between the conventional algorithms and emergency methods. In addition, this book introduces and designs an up-to-date path-planning method based on artificial potential field methods for collision avoidance, and verifies the effectiveness of this method in complex road environment. Next, in order to accurately track the predetermined path for collision avoidance, traditional control methods, humanlike control strategies, and intelligent approaches are discussed to solve the path-tracking problem and ensure the vehicle successfully avoids the collisions. In addition, this book designs and applies robust control to solve the path-tracking problem and verify its tracking effect in different scenarios. Finally, this book introduces the basic principles and test methods of AEB system for collision avoidance of a single vehicle. Meanwhile, by taking advantage of data sharing between vehicles based on V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure) communication, pile-up accidents in longitudinal direction are effectively avoided through cooperative motion control of multiple vehicles.

According to the data provided by World Health Organization, about 1.25 million people are killed and even more people are injured in traffic accidents each year. A significant amount of work has been carried out along with technological advancements to ensure the safety of automobiles. For example, the advanced driving assistance system plays an auxiliary role for the general public to drive, and the intelligent transportation system also brings convenience to road safety management. However, developing a more powerful automatic driving system and evaluating its safety are still great challenges that need further studies. This book will demonstrate the safety decision-making according to the requirement of increasing the safety of autonomous driving. In detail, including the introduction techniques of AI-monitor-based safe decision making, ODD-monitor-based safe decision making, Legal decision-making for autonomous driving, and Moral decision-making under extremely critical situations.

This book presents a detailed background to the circular economy in China, explores government measures to promote it in China’s market economy, and introduces the supporting laws and policies.

A number of international cruise lines, including Costa Crociere, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Princess Cruises, MSC Cruises, Star Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and Dream Cruises, have entered the cruise market in Mainland China.

This book presents a detailed background to the circular economy in China, explores government measures to promote it in China’s market economy, and introduces the supporting laws and policies.